GSCENE 71
HYDES’ HOPES
SCENE & DONE IT
BY REV MICHAEL HYDES
BY MICHAEL STEINHAGE
MY BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL, EVIL FRED
THE CAT WHO LIVES IN A DRAWER
) Over the years Chris and I have lived with both cats and dogs, and presently share our home with a handsome hound called Odie. However no animal I've ever met was quite like Fred.
) My sister has a cat who lives in a drawer. We shall call her Sally.* I'm visiting for a couple of days. Actually, my sister has two cats. The other one (Jim, let's say) is tough as nails. Gets into fights, comes back with half his fur missing, loving it. Lives his best thug life. Never know when chance will chuck you a bit of chicken! Jimmy greets me at the door, growl-purr, to inquire whether I've brought anything edible for him, and then saunters off to square up to a Rottweiler or something.
In New York, Chris worked away a lot and I felt quite lonely of an evening. I thought a cat would help keep me company. Chris was okay with the idea, as long as we found one that had personality, that would be a part of the family and not just an occasional lodger. I checked the local ads and found Fred. His owner was moving from NY to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (my home town) and couldn't take him with her. The picture showed a handsome three-year-old British blue with emerald green eyes. I mentioned I was looking for a cat with personality. “Oh, don't worry” she said, “Fred has bags of personality.” It turned out that Fred had way too much personality for one animal. If we left him alone he wrecked the place. He disembowelled cushions, scratched furniture and urinated on clothing. We took to locking him in the bathroom when we went out simply to limit the damage. But he’d get into the bathroom cabinet and pull everything out into the sink. We put trays of water on top of boxes of medication so that if he pulled them out he'd get wet. It worked. He stopped pulling stuff out of the bathroom cabinet and shredded the shower curtain instead. One night I came home, and instead of paying him attention I went straight to the computer to send an email I'd forgotten to send earlier in the day. Fred was so angry with the rejection that he defecated on the bed behind me; three feet way from me, as I sent the email. Not some little easy-to-clean turd. Nope: the biggest, sloppiest, smelliest mess imaginable. I could hear it, and smell it. I turned around. The look on his face said: ‘Now ignore me’.
“Where’s Sally?” I ask as we carry my bags down the hall. “Sally,” head nodding towards the study door, “is probably in her drawer.” And indeed. My sister removes the top drawer of her desk (which curiously, already stands open a bit), thereby exposing the second drawer, and also exposing Sally. She is placed, neatly, atop an A4 padded peel & seal envelope. She blinks, and parts her jaws just a fraction, letting the tiniest ‘meow’ escape. Just about. Yes, Sally lives in this drawer. Here is where you can find her should you, to her horror, come looking for her. ** I was puzzled, but concluded she is quite simply an introvert. For starters, Sally’s always been a feline of a rather nervous disposition. Mice used to chase her as a kitten. Loud noises make her freeze, then dart away in any given direction, she is not a cat’s cat. ‘Hide and seek’, for Sally, has never been a game, it’s her life. Just hide actually, no seek. So I guess Sally comes to the drawer because it’s her safe space. Her haven, where she can shut out the world and get some me-time; let go a little. Escape her anxieties, and quite frankly, just the stress of being her.
“‘Hide and seek’, for Sally, has never been a game, it’s her life. Just hide actually, no seek” We got a little cat to keep him company. He tortured her. We had a guest visit from the UK. Fred urinated in his suitcase. We got a dog. Fred became obese. We couldn't work out the connection until we found him buried deep in the sack of dog food gorging himself. Alas, the salt level in dog food is way too high for a cat. Fred developed kidney problems and a urinary tract infection. The vet had to remove his penis. He was extra affectionate the day he came home from the vet. I think he even tolerated our other cat and the dog. But by the following day he was as ornery as ever. Fred lived to the grand old age of 21. I did wonder if he'd mellow with age, but he never changed. The day we had to let him go he gorged himself on chicken and then sat for an age by the bowl. On the other side of the glass panelled kitchen door the dogs were salivating in the hope that he'd leave something for them. Daft dogs, the only interest Fred had was in torturing them. Fred was an absolute pain. I had to make sure that everything was washable, all food was out of reach (he'd be half way through a loaf of bread if you were dumb enough to leave it out), and visitors had to be warned that it was never the dogs they needed to be afraid of. And I miss him so much. My beautiful, wonderful, evil Fred.
I get you, Sally. While I myself love being the centre of attention, equally, I need time on my own, time to recharge, by myself. Sometimes I have to be able to close my door, and spend a whole evening watching Murder She Wrote. I have a strong and undeniable introvert streak, and I need my base where I touch down every so often. What are you comfortable with, that's the simple question? What, and where, makes you feel safe (or if you never ever feel completely safe - I suspect this is Sally's predicament), what makes you feel a bit safer? So don't worry Sally, you’re okay. Spend as much time in that desk, second drawer, as you need. Come out when you're ready. Or not. *All persons appearing in this work are completely real. Any resemblance to real felines, living or dead, is not coincidental. But, as will become apparent, it is better for Sally that we provide her with an alias. **She enters, I’m told, via the back and cleverly pushes the top drawer open to make her little space. Quite the stir the first time my sister was working, and suddenly the drawer, like furniture possessed, started sliding out by itself!
